Verdi's Requiem

As you know, I sing in the University of Dublin Choral Society.  This semester, we have been working on Verdi's Requiem, and it was a very special concert.  Not only we were singing for the 300th anniversary of the founding of the medical school at TCD, we were performing with the Guinness Choir and the Ulster Orchestra (who cost 40,000 pounds sterling to have perform), and we were putting the concert on at the brand new Grand Canal Theater in the Docklands in Center City Dublin.  It was a fantastic venue and a great night, and I was very lucky to be a part of this and to have many of my friends come out for the concert.

Grand Canal Theater

                 
A lot of preparation went into this concert, including a weekend rehearsal in Belfast so that we could rehearse with the Ulster Orchestra.  It was all worth it though, when we got on stage and you could see over 200 singers and a 70-piece orchestra getting ready to perform a truly moving piece.

The concert went really well, and there are a few video clips of us singing.  Here is a video of the beggining of the second movement of the piece, the Dies Irae, which also inlcudes one of my favorite parts of the whole song, the Tuba Mirum, which is the part that includes some fantastic brass instrumentation and vocals.

The second link is for the fourth and fifth movements of the piece, and can be found here.  The fourth movement, Sanctus, is a double fugue, with the choir being split up into two choirs whose parts mimic and follow the others.  The fifth movement is the Agnus Dei.

Here is a link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ-vvNB_wWU, to a bit of the final movement.  This part is the Rex Tremendae.

Here is a link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kFiFwM7SJM, to the Requiem aeternam, from the opening movement of the piece.

Here is a link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkotiT3HehQ, to the final movement of the piece, Liberma Me.

Enjoy!  I know that I did.  Singing with the UDCS was one of the highlights of my time here at TCD.  It was a completely different choral experience singing with a large choir that performs larger scale works with full orchestras.  While challenging at times,  it was an experience that I absolutely enjoyed.